Title: ScorpiaAuthor: Anthony Horowitz The Reason: The author has laid out the series in a way that once you start reading you can't stop. The story is very unexpected and you can never imagine what happens until you have finished the book. I chose this book in the series because it is the protagonist's, Alex Rider, first confrontation with the people who took everything away from him.
The Genre: The whole series would fall into the genre of a thriller and more specifically a spy thriller. It has nonstop action and each page will create another challenge for the young spy, Alex, to conquer. Alex portrays many of the same features of James Bond that involve secret agencies and spies that do undercover missions. This would categorize the book as a spy thriller as well as under the young adult genre. When Alex Rider was younger, his uncle, Ian Rider had trained him to do everything athletic like mountain climbing, karate, parachuting, and etc. His uncle indirectly prepared him to be a spy so when MI6 (the British secret agency) needed him for the first time he was already prepared to go into his first mission. This would apply to the young adult genre because he is the youngest spy at the agency, and is considered a ‘young adult’. The Alex Rider series is primarily directed to adolescent teenagers, having the protagonist be a fourteen year old teenager himself. Lastly, another genre it would fall into would be the fiction genre. Although the idea of a fourteen year old spy is practical, the story was not based on real events.
The Plot: There is a secret meeting for the criminal organization known as SCORPIA. SCORPIA stands for their 4 biggest groups: Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, and Assassination. In SCORPIA, there were twelve chief executives that run the operation, however, three died of natural causes. The story opens with one of the chief executives, Julia Rothman briefing her colleagues on their latest project, which is code named "Invisible Sword." The operation's plan is to murder children aged 12 - 14 all over Great Britain in hopes to destroy the friendly relations between the two superpowers: United States and the United Kingdom. The story reopens with Alex Rider visiting Venice with his friend Tom Harris, Alex not telling Tom the truth about why he left London. In the end of the last book of the series Yassen Gregorovich, the antagonist, tells Alex that he should go to Venice and search for Scorpia. Alex looks for any clues in Venice and finally finds one in a mansion while a party is taking place for Julia Rothman. He is then captured by a Scorpia assassin called Nile as he investigates the party and is left to die in a room that would slowly be flooded. He barely manages to escape and returns to his friend, Tom. While Alex was at the party he was able to look at a few papers that mentioned the name ‘Constanto’. Alex is able to infiltrate the pharmaceutical company, Consanto, with the help of his friend Tom and his brother. He runs into Nile again at Constanto; however, this time Nile doesn't try to kill him but takes Alex to see Julia Rothman. Mrs. Rothman offers Alex a job at Scorpia, which he accepts after Rothman tells him that Scorpia had hired his father John Rider as an assassin. She also tells Alex that John was killed by MI6 during a prisoner exchange at Albert Bridge by his friend at MI6. Alex is inducted into SCORPIA and goes to a camp where he trains at the arts. In the middle of the camp, Alex is withdrawn and put into a mission. His first task is to kill his former MI6 superior, Mrs. Jones.
Main Characters:
Alex Rider - A teenage spy working undercover for MI6 and is the protagonist of the series of books. A few months after his birth, Alex's parents, John and Helen Rider, were killed in a plane crash. Alex was then raised by his uncle, Ian Rider. They traveled widely, throughout the UK, Europe and the Americas. Alex learned many of his special skills on these trips, such as rock climbing, scuba diving and foreign languages. His uncle never told him anything about his life and his parents either. When Alex was about 14, His uncle died and mysterious people came to the house and told him it was due to a car crash. Alex was then forced to live with his friend and legal guardian, Jack Starbright. Alex was a suspicious about what had happened to his uncle, so he went to check it out himself. He had later found bullet holes all over Ian's car. MI6 shortly came after and explained about his uncle. They then forced Alex to do his first mission. In SCORPIA, Alex finally learns a little bit about his father and wants to know more. He goes to Venice because of the advice Yassen Gregorovich gave to him in the last book. Alex thought his father was an assassin but he learns there that he was a double agent who really worked for MI6. He then also learns that his father didn't survive because Julia Rothman killed his father. "In the middle of this, two English schoolboys sat at a table drinking lemon water ice. One was short and dark, with spiky black hair and bright blue eyes. The other was Alex Rider." Alex is known throughout Venice as a good person who stopped attacks on the world.
Julia Rothman - She is one of the twelve original founding members of SCORPIA. As previously stated, Julia Rothman was in charge for their latest project, which is code named "Invisible Sword." The operation's plan is to murder children aged 12 - 14 all over Great Britain in hopes to destroy the friendly relations between the two superpowers: United States and the United Kingdom. She hates Alex and tries to kill him because she loved his father and he betrayed her. During the end of the book, Mrs. Rothman finds out her operation fails and tries to run away, but is crushed by the blazing platform of the hot-air balloon, which falls out of the sky right on top of her, driving her into the pavement. "He had almost forgotten the package resting on his thighs. That was typical of Julia. Perhaps it was because she was the only woman on the executive committee, but she had always been the most emotional. He wondered what she had bought him. The parcel was heavy. On an impulse, he pulled the ribbon, then ripped off the paper...And screamed as the contents spilled over him. Scorpions. Dozens of them. They were at least four inches long, sand colors, with tiny pincers and fat swollen bodies. As they tipped into his lap and began to climb his shirt, he recognized them for what they were: hairy thick tailed scorpions from the Parabuthus species, the most deadly in the world" Mrs. Rothman devised a plan to kill one of the chief executives of SCORPIA because he planned to retire. She had volunteered to do it because she wanted to kill her friend and because she loves to kill.
Nile - He is Julia Rothman's assistant. Nile is in his mid-twenties, is black and is very fit. He has a skin disorder called Vitiligo which causes skin discoloration. He is very dangerous and self-confident, but he is extremely afraid of heights. Nile joined Scorpia at a young age and spent three months training on Malagosto (SCORPIA training facility) and was the second best in his class due to his fear of heights. Ironically, he died falling from a thousand feet because he was scared of heights. He is still extremely agile, strong and swift, and killed his first man at the age of eighteen. He is also an expert in karate, sword fighting, ninja weaponry and moves. He demonstrates these techniques at Consanto when he kills Dr. Liebermann by throwing a sword straight into his face. Nile also has another problem which is that he does things before thinking about it. "The man spoke to him a second time. Alex had no choice. "I don't speak Italian," he said. "You're English?" The man switched effortlessly into Alex's language. "Yes." What are you doing in Mrs. Rothman's office?" My name is Alex Rider-" "And my name is Nile. But that's not what I asked you" If Nile had processed that name he would have taken him to Julia Rothman instead of putting him in a deadly trap which could have killed him.
Themes: A theme that is prevalent in Scorpia is the idea that children are used a lot in intelligence agencies. MI6 has indirectly forced Alex Rider in four missions before this. They call him their secret weapon because their enemies never expect a government agency to use a child in their missions. Once their enemies find out they will still underestimate him and make mistakes. SCORPIA also at first attempts to use Alex but Alex Rider fakes allegiance to SCORPIA to get into their inner circle, and thus SCORPIA is using a child as an assassin. Another major theme in the book is revenge. Revenge is seen through the eyes of Alex Rider, Julia Rothman, and SCORPIA. In the middle of the book Alex Rider wanted revenge from Mrs. Jones from false information given by Julia Rothman. Alex was going to kill Mrs. Jones who is his MI6 superior because he thought she had killed his father, John Rider. Julia Rothman also shows revenge on John Rider. Julia Rothman was unaware that John Rider was undercover and fell in love with him. When John Rider left Mrs. Johns devised a plan to kill him off so SCORPIA would think he was dead. Julia Rothman did learn that John was still a live and that he betrayed him so she blew up his plane in revenge. SCORPIA as a whole was angry at the end of the book at Alex Rider for destroying their operation. They wanted revenge so they paid a sniper to kill him because he had also ruined their reputation as a whole.
Major Conflict: This was the turning point for the whole story. Alex enters Malagosto and tries to be an assassin. He is tested and appears to be very good but is not able to point a gun to a civilian. To try to remedy the problem, He is sent on a mission by Julia Rothman to murder his former superior Mrs. Jones. He executes the plan laid out by SCORPIA perfectly and comes face to face with Mrs. Jones. Alex once again cannot kill a civilian and purposely misses his target. This triggered an alarm and guards come in to get him. He fails his mission and is captured by MI6. While captured by MI6, they explain what had happened and told him the truth about SCORPIA’s plan to kill every kid 12 – 14 in England. Alex is also forced to give an explanation to the prime minister and some of his counsel. With Alex’s help, they are able to discover what SCORPIA’s plan is and try to resolve it. The counsel come up with a plan to take down all the satellites in the city, but MI6 know that is not going to work so the devise a plan of their own. They decide to make Alex work as a double agent within SCORPIA to pass along information back to MI6 on the Invisible Sword project. He agrees and MI6 sets up a fake escape for him. He then rejoins with Mrs. Rothman who acts suspicious but accepts that he succeeded in the mission anyway.
Symbol: Throughout the book, the scorpion is symbolic of evil. SCORPIA, as stated before, stands for Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, and Assassination. It is a large organization run at different cities in the world and currently has 9 chief executive heads. The scorpion was shown in two different parts of the book. The first was in the very beginning when Julia Rothman killed Max Grendel for retiring. SCORPIA could not let anyone leave their organization, not even their chief executives so she planted the most poisonous scorpions discovered today in Max's gift from them. When he opened it he was killed almost instantly as the scorpions bit into his skin. The second time the scorpion was seen in the book was when Alex visited Venice and wanted to find SCORPIA. After a day worth searching he finally saw a large scorpion on a boat and easily figured out that xthis was what Yassen Gregorovich was talking about. The Scorpion is seen is power which is also seen in their motto "once stung twice bitten”.
New words:
Terahertz
For some reason, Mrs. Rothman had chosen to bring him here and presumably he would still be here when the terahertz beams were fired across London.
I think it had something to do with power and energy and then i looked it up and tera was a prefix for 10^12 power.
Stiletto
Her stiletto heels rapped against the stone, sending echoes that flitted into the shadows
By context clues I figured out it was some type of shoe, but i didn't know what it was.
Tableau
All of them were frozen together in a single great tableau overhead.
I had no idea what this was and almost got it confused with a tablet
Nanospheres
The golden nanospheres would have dissolved and thousands of children would be dead
Once again this had a prefix which puzzled me but i knew what a sphere was so i though it was a small sphere.
Oratory
I'm sure that you know he was born in London and went to a famous school known as the Oratory.
I didn't know what an oratory is and i thought it was a type of school but it was not.
Compare and Contrast: This book reminds me a lot of a book called Silverfin, which was a young James bond adventure. I read this about 5 years ago and i remembered that it was very similar to the Alex rider series. Silverfin was about a young boy named James Bond who tries to find out how is neighbor's wife died by being eaten in a lake full of eels. He finds out that his neighbor was trying to come up with a steroid which he tried on everybody around him, even James. James tries to stop him because he figured out that the drug was defective and it could actually kill or harm people. In the end James is able to destroy the lab and watch his neighbor die in a pool of drugged eels. Scorpia is similar to this because Alex on his own investigates how his parents died and get caught by the enemies. In both books their enemies underestimate them because they are young boys so they are able to fool them and destroy their plans. Both their families were killed by their enemies, Alex's family died in a plane crash and James family died in a mountain climbing accident. The two books are also different because in Silverfin, James Bond never had any help from secret services but worked alone while Alex had the help of MI6. Also, in Scorpia, Alex was not assisted throughout the mission but did receive gadgets, whereas, In Silverfin, James Bond was assisted a lot throughout the book. Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/422805847
Title: ScorpiaAuthor: Anthony Horowitz
The Reason: The author has laid out the series in a way that once you start reading you can't stop. The story is very unexpected and you can never imagine what happens until you have finished the book. I chose this book in the series because it is the protagonist's, Alex Rider, first confrontation with the people who took everything away from him.
The Genre: The whole series would fall into the genre of a thriller and more specifically a spy thriller. It has nonstop action and each page will create another challenge for the young spy, Alex, to conquer. Alex portrays many of the same features of James Bond that involve secret agencies and spies that do undercover missions. This would categorize the book as a spy thriller as well as under the young adult genre. When Alex Rider was younger, his uncle, Ian Rider had trained him to do everything athletic like mountain climbing, karate, parachuting, and etc. His uncle indirectly prepared him to be a spy so when MI6 (the British secret agency) needed him for the first time he was already prepared to go into his first mission. This would apply to the young adult genre because he is the youngest spy at the agency, and is considered a ‘young adult’. The Alex Rider series is primarily directed to adolescent teenagers, having the protagonist be a fourteen year old teenager himself. Lastly, another genre it would fall into would be the fiction genre. Although the idea of a fourteen year old spy is practical, the story was not based on real events.
The Plot: There is a secret meeting for the criminal organization known as SCORPIA. SCORPIA stands for their 4 biggest groups: Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, and Assassination. In SCORPIA, there were twelve chief executives that run the operation, however, three died of natural causes. The story opens with one of the chief executives, Julia Rothman briefing her colleagues on their latest project, which is code named "Invisible Sword." The operation's plan is to murder children aged 12 - 14 all over Great Britain in hopes to destroy the friendly relations between the two superpowers: United States and the United Kingdom. The story reopens with Alex Rider visiting Venice with his friend Tom Harris, Alex not telling Tom the truth about why he left London. In the end of the last book of the series Yassen Gregorovich, the antagonist, tells Alex that he should go to Venice and search for Scorpia. Alex looks for any clues in Venice and finally finds one in a mansion while a party is taking place for Julia Rothman. He is then captured by a Scorpia assassin called Nile as he investigates the party and is left to die in a room that would slowly be flooded. He barely manages to escape and returns to his friend, Tom. While Alex was at the party he was able to look at a few papers that mentioned the name ‘Constanto’. Alex is able to infiltrate the pharmaceutical company, Consanto, with the help of his friend Tom and his brother. He runs into Nile again at Constanto; however, this time Nile doesn't try to kill him but takes Alex to see Julia Rothman. Mrs. Rothman offers Alex a job at Scorpia, which he accepts after Rothman tells him that Scorpia had hired his father John Rider as an assassin. She also tells Alex that John was killed by MI6 during a prisoner exchange at Albert Bridge by his friend at MI6. Alex is inducted into SCORPIA and goes to a camp where he trains at the arts. In the middle of the camp, Alex is withdrawn and put into a mission. His first task is to kill his former MI6 superior, Mrs. Jones.
Main Characters:
Themes:
A theme that is prevalent in Scorpia is the idea that children are used a lot in intelligence agencies. MI6 has indirectly forced Alex Rider in four missions before this. They call him their secret weapon because their enemies never expect a government agency to use a child in their missions. Once their enemies find out they will still underestimate him and make mistakes. SCORPIA also at first attempts to use Alex but Alex Rider fakes allegiance to SCORPIA to get into their inner circle, and thus SCORPIA is using a child as an assassin. Another major theme in the book is revenge. Revenge is seen through the eyes of Alex Rider, Julia Rothman, and SCORPIA. In the middle of the book Alex Rider wanted revenge from Mrs. Jones from false information given by Julia Rothman. Alex was going to kill Mrs. Jones who is his MI6 superior because he thought she had killed his father, John Rider. Julia Rothman also shows revenge on John Rider. Julia Rothman was unaware that John Rider was undercover and fell in love with him. When John Rider left Mrs. Johns devised a plan to kill him off so SCORPIA would think he was dead. Julia Rothman did learn that John was still a live and that he betrayed him so she blew up his plane in revenge. SCORPIA as a whole was angry at the end of the book at Alex Rider for destroying their operation. They wanted revenge so they paid a sniper to kill him because he had also ruined their reputation as a whole.
Major Conflict: This was the turning point for the whole story. Alex enters Malagosto and tries to be an assassin. He is tested and appears to be very good but is not able to point a gun to a civilian. To try to remedy the problem, He is sent on a mission by Julia Rothman to murder his former superior Mrs. Jones. He executes the plan laid out by SCORPIA perfectly and comes face to face with Mrs. Jones. Alex once again cannot kill a civilian and purposely misses his target. This triggered an alarm and guards come in to get him. He fails his mission and is captured by MI6. While captured by MI6, they explain what had happened and told him the truth about SCORPIA’s plan to kill every kid 12 – 14 in England. Alex is also forced to give an explanation to the prime minister and some of his counsel. With Alex’s help, they are able to discover what SCORPIA’s plan is and try to resolve it. The counsel come up with a plan to take down all the satellites in the city, but MI6 know that is not going to work so the devise a plan of their own. They decide to make Alex work as a double agent within SCORPIA to pass along information back to MI6 on the Invisible Sword project. He agrees and MI6 sets up a fake escape for him. He then rejoins with Mrs. Rothman who acts suspicious but accepts that he succeeded in the mission anyway.
Symbol: Throughout the book, the scorpion is symbolic of evil. SCORPIA, as stated before, stands for Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, and Assassination. It is a large organization run at different cities in the world and currently has 9 chief executive heads. The scorpion was shown in two different parts of the book. The first was in the very beginning when Julia Rothman killed Max Grendel for retiring. SCORPIA could not let anyone leave their organization, not even their chief executives so she planted the most poisonous scorpions discovered today in Max's gift from them. When he opened it he was killed almost instantly as the scorpions bit into his skin. The second time the scorpion was seen in the book was when Alex visited Venice and wanted to find SCORPIA. After a day worth searching he finally saw a large scorpion on a boat and easily figured out that xthis was what Yassen Gregorovich was talking about. The Scorpion is seen is power which is also seen in their motto "once stung twice bitten”.
New words:
Compare and Contrast: This book reminds me a lot of a book called Silverfin, which was a young James bond adventure. I read this about 5 years ago and i remembered that it was very similar to the Alex rider series. Silverfin was about a young boy named James Bond who tries to find out how is neighbor's wife died by being eaten in a lake full of eels. He finds out that his neighbor was trying to come up with a steroid which he tried on everybody around him, even James. James tries to stop him because he figured out that the drug was defective and it could actually kill or harm people. In the end James is able to destroy the lab and watch his neighbor die in a pool of drugged eels. Scorpia is similar to this because Alex on his own investigates how his parents died and get caught by the enemies. In both books their enemies underestimate them because they are young boys so they are able to fool them and destroy their plans. Both their families were killed by their enemies, Alex's family died in a plane crash and James family died in a mountain climbing accident. The two books are also different because in Silverfin, James Bond never had any help from secret services but worked alone while Alex had the help of MI6. Also, in Scorpia, Alex was not assisted throughout the mission but did receive gadgets, whereas, In Silverfin, James Bond was assisted a lot throughout the book.
Goodreads link: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/422805847